With DID, I am one yet many.....loving my ex

Hi, I suppose I wanted to try this site to see how it felt to release what I have been bottling up inside of me. As what is inside of me is strong feelings right now. I have an ex that I placed a protective order on about two years ago. I recently found out that he is no longer with the individual he cheated on me with and also threatened to kill them and all their families, just as he did mine. I feel like she probably called the law on him and got him hospitalized as he is now working with the same mental health company as I am.

As the title says I have Dissociative Identity Disorder which I found out four or so years ago while I was with my ex-husband. I was with my ex-husband for twenty years of my life. Every bit of my loved that man with all that I had and I was devastated when he told me he wanted a divorce. I was distraught as I was in a trauma bond according to the "experts".

I do the work, go to therapy, trauma groups and walks in nature with my dog. Yet I am sitting here with him on my mind. When I obtained the protective order it was because he had tried to kill us both in our truck, he was in a rage, I said then that we both had problems but he refused to go to therapy with me or even alone because it was all me. According to my therapist and others who witnessed his actions and behavior, they advised he was a narcissist. Yes I can comprehend their labeling of him, however he had issues as well and I never wanted to give up on him or us.

I was a shell when I was with him, he got hurt and was on disability and did not work, times were hard and I pushed to get money instead of taking care of him. I thought I was doing what was needed. I worked long hours and made as much as I could, which left me tired. During most my spare time, I went to food banks to wait in line in our truck or outside the church one day a month for the big boxes, or I was at home cleaning the house and ensuring he had clothes cleaned. We had no money as he did not have insurance for the injury but we had help. Those who know what high levels of stress do to a person with DID, and for someone who doesn't know that had DID, I can only imagine what I did to set him off. The man fixed me almost every meal. He left me love notes yet screamed at me when I did something to piss him off.

I told a friend recently I would have died if I did not get away and part of me wants to thank his ex that's no longer living there, and then again part of me hopes he actually heals and acknowledges his C-PTSD as I personally don't believe in labeling an individual one thing.

This part of me that believes labeling an individual as narcissist is behavioral and not personality. behaviors can be changed, right? Narcissist can't change...so was he only a narcissist to me or was he just a grown man with common C-PTSD symptoms. That part of me that feels like if he could heal his inner child, that one that never felt love from his father, then maybe he would live well and love life. Yes I have that one that misses the love notes in the dust of the TV, I miss him making me my favorite breakfast even though he told me I never loved him back the same way.

The things I have learned in trauma therapy and the different styles of love, those are what I wish he would learn, and yes a part of me wishes it so we could be us again but better. He would always say be better than the day before...and I love you more. Yet that voice inside deep that says the bad was really bad and often. We are better apart, and maybe I will find a man who can be better with me and understand the past is not my future but it does affect how I handle life so be patient with me....

and that one inside that for real just is so harsh and so damn right saying "how when you can't even have patience for yourself".

I try to remember the good, just as I try to do about my childhood abusers. but that part of me that wants this imaginary love story is hard to let go. It is so hard to not imagine him being that man I married, the one that made me laugh more than I cried. He was the one I wanted to do my life with forever and I did everything I could for him so he would love me, he said I never loved him which hurts more for that part of me than anything I went through. Yet I yell at myself for still loving the man I married. The thought of our souls on fire again. I don't ever think I will have that passionate of a love again for another man. Even for the man that's living with me now, I have not. and most days I don't even want to try as I keep telling everyone I am working on myself. Most days working on myself is sitting at home watching Greys anatomy and walking in the woods I've been so blessed to rent. What's worse about all this is the protective order is up in about a month and I have to for my healing I have to re order the protective order and hope that they do approve it. That is in my core to do though the core is sometimes so rocked with all these others that both love and hate this life.